Last Day on Earth Survival Wiki:Beginner's Guide
Last Day on Earth: Survival - Beginner Tips & FAQ This is based on my first two days playing up to level 18 and bits of advice scattered around this very reddit, all in one place. It is by no means perfect or complete! So please, feel free to let me know of anything I missed or screwed up! "…if I’ve lived this long it’s because I’ve always feared the worst and been ready for it." -Flashman LDE:S is a zombie survival game along the lines of DayZ or H1z1 (or 7 Days, Ark, etc.). Your goal is to survive in a hostile environment, building up your base and resources and fending off invaders both alive and dead. So, if you've played basically any survival game before you'll know the basics already. But, being a mobile game (in beta, no less), there are some differences. Enough prelude! Here's a basic rundown of your first chunk of the game. You'll spawn on a plot of land that will serve as your home base. Initially it will have a selection of basic resources - stone, wood, berries, a little iron, and a few zombies/wolves/deer. You'll notice your food/water are already dropping pretty quickly, but don't worry about that for now. Your first goal is to get a basic shelter set up and get prepped for exploration. (NOTE) - To kill a deer, crouch/sneak up behind it with a melee weapon for a one-hit kill) First, grab some wood and stone from the ground and make an axe. If you get accosted by a zombie or wolf, don't panic. You can easily kill anything you come across on this map so just swing away. If you take too much damage, scrounge up some berries - they will be your primary source of healing for the near future. You'll find an abandoned car that has some scrap/loot inside of it. You can use it as a storage container if you start to get overloaded, as of right now you don't have to worry about another player coming along to loot you. YOUR FIRST HOME! "‘To build the house, trees must fall,’ says Kutebar complacently. I agreed with him entirely, mind you." You might be tempted to build an enormous space to start, but keep it simple for now. Leave yourself enough room for one or two crates and a stove. Store everything in doors as soon as you can, but I'm not sure if PvP is even technically possible yet so don't sweat it too bad. Eventually you'll have burned through all your local berries and deer meat and start to starve/dehydrate. When you see the warning box above your head, drop anything of value in your storage and head out to the wilderness. You have a few options on the world map right out of the gate. You'll want to prioritize Alfa Bunker to your NE, but if you're dying of thirst you might want to wait a bit. Head to a green (easy) forest with an axe (or make one when you get there). Stock up on berries to keep you going/heal from zombie fights as you harvest. Don't panic if you see a zombie. A torch/axe/crowbar/etc. will be fine against standard Roamers and Wolves, even Fast Biters (though they'll do a bit more damage). You might run into a Floater Bloater though, in which case you're gonna want to run (but that's rare in a green). Look for loot crates, stock up on wood, and head home when your inventory is full. "PLAYER CHARACTERS" "Any soldier will tell you that, in the heat of a fight, sights and sounds imprint themselves on your memory and stay vivid for fifty years . . . but you lose all sense of time." You still don't want to panic if you see a PC, but you have to be paying attention when you're out and about, and make a fast judgement call when you see one coming. So far, as far as I know, they're not actually Players, but AI. So they'll charge you - and if they're naked with a torch, no problem, but if you're in the middle of a fight or at 10 health and a guy with a nail board comes running at you it's time to bolt. If you're out scavenging, pay attention to the game loading/jittering, it can sometimes signal an incoming "player". If you're low on health at any point and you plan on staying, eat any meat/berries you have, don't wait - you won't have a chance mid-fight if you get caught unaware. Hopefully you've found some rope on zombies by now and can make yourself a backpack, which will make your life significantly easier. If your food/water situation is stable you can make your next trip to Alfa Base, if not, keep running Easy level forests/quarries and build up your base. Get your garden plots up and running ASAP so you can get your carrot stream going, same with a water trap once you unlock them. At Alfa Base, you'll find a key card on the corpse of a dead guard out front that will unlock the door. Inside you'll find a bunch of lockers filled with loot, including two guns and a set of military clothes. It might take you two trips to claim it all. There's also a console that needs a code, but so far nobody knows what it's for or where the code(s) is. (NOTE) - DO NOT USE YOUR GUNS! They're tempting, but you truly don't need them for any Easy or Medium zones, and there's no way to repair them once they're broken. Stick to melee, and keep an eye out for machetes and the like. Torches work wonders in a pinch) Keep salvaging from Easy zones (and Alfa until its empty, locker loot does not respawn) until you've got the basics crafted and set up in your house. Remember, don't build out too much - you'll need to upgrade these floors/walls later to defend against the horde and they're not cheap. Start slipping in to Yellow (medium) zones as you start to gear up. Loot everything you can. Most of the electronics junk won't be useful to you for a long time, so prioritize what you need as you go. Don't be afraid to delete some unneeded items to make room for something better, but keep in mind what you might need later as you level and unlock for tech. From here on out you can do as you like. If you need weapons/clothes, keep an eye out for Players while you're scavenging as they're the best source I've found so far. You can't repair anything, so make sure to swap out when you can and destroy anything nearly done for. Supply Drops & Plane Crashes * I've only been to one plane crash so far but it was a loot bonanaza. 22-24 bags packed with gear and weapons, including a gun at full health. Had to make two trips, got a ton of wood too. No standing enemies but a roamer/wolf would spawn every now and then, easy peasy. * Airdrops land on a big plot, lots of space to run arouns and find it. So far I've encountered every zombie but a Bloater there, but nothing too crazy. Once you clear a zombie/wolf will still spawn occasionally. Good spot for wood, too. The drop itself varies, I haven't found anything mindblowing yet. GENERAL TIPS! "That’s the great thing about policy, and why the world is such an infernal place: the man who makes the policy don’t have to carry it out, and the man who carries it out ain’t responsible for the policy." * If you want to see the name/stats of an item, hold your finger on it for a couple seconds and it'll pop up. * You don't need to equip a tool like an axe to use it, just have it in your inventory somewhere. Only equip weapons (you can use tools as weapons in a pinch). * You can hold down your tap when harvesting until the node is finished, don't need to tap. * Your health refills when you level up. Helps to know when you're out and about. * Try and hold on to as many of those random car/bike/etc. parts you find, as you'll need them to construct the fast travel vehicles later on and they're hard to come by. Remember, once you unlock the vehicles/tech stations, you have to build them like usual THEN add additional parts once you've placed it, so keep that in mind. * Eventually you'll have your two gardens and two water traps set up, coupled with a smoker. You'll pretty much never have to worry about food/water again. Don't forget - food is also instant heals (but not water)! * You have to go to your inventory to see your health/water levels, but you will get an icon above your head if you get critically low. * You gain experience points from harvesting and combat, but not crafting. Combat seems to give the most but drains more resources over time via weapon and armor damage. * Wood Planks! Wood Planks! Wood Planks! By level 18 you are going to hit the Plank bottleneck pretty hard. I made two work stations myself, and I'm thinking about doing the same for the stone/brick station soon as well. Upgrading your floors/walls takes an insane amount of both, as does a bunch of other stuff you need to build, so make sure to keep rotating in logs and taking out planks between scavenge runs. * Wolves, Roamers, Fast Biters, and Toxic Spitters (something like that), are doable with a full health bar and a torch as a weapon, but you can only get through 2 or 3 like that before you drop so eat up when you can. Floating Bloaters are more resilient, so try and have at least a crowbar for those. * Once you unlock the meat smoker you don't need the normal stove anymore as it cooks the meat without taking your much needed wood for fuel. Steak and jerky give 30 health, but jerky gives 10 more hunger than steak. * Focus on getting to level 18 and unlocking/building traps ASAP, before upgrading walls. Zombie Hordes will smash through any walls in their path but they won't touch your boxes or stations. Traps work the best, placed in the direction they'll be coming from. * If you know a horde is gonna plow through you, try to get on shortly after and repair your walls before one of your neighbors drops by to take a peek - although that might not even be possible yet. * On that note - drop by your neighbors! They, too, are AI bases. The one to your NE near Alfa is busted open and has like 60 logs, 40 carrots, and a bunch of scrap and iron bars/ore. If you get to a base that hasn't been wrecked there's not much you can do at this point except maybe rob their garden. Weapons won't work on their traps either, and you'll take 10 dmg a tic if you get too close. * If you're out in the wild and you need to craft something, back out to the world map and do it there to avoid getting attacked while your inventory is up and wasting food/water. * Spend your leveling point wisely - Starting out you won't have much use for the door mat (which just spawns you on top of it when you return home, not useful until later) or basic clothes for a while. That said, spend on what ya like! * Sneak up behind deer, wolves, all zombies when you can for a major bonus in sneak attack damage. * If you decide to go somewhere you think might end with you dying, leave your valuables at home and go in with minimal gear. If you die you lose everything and respawn back home. * Don't melt your scrap metal, or all your iron ore right away, you need it for various crafting options. Look at the required materials for the things you'll need 2-3 levels out as you go. * Start leveling your floors to level two as soon as you can so you can start building/placing level 2 chests for more space. You'll also need them for more advanced things like the motorcycle. * If you find a vehicle part that doesn't look like a required mat in your recipe, that's because it's an additional piece that you need to place on it AFTER you build and place it. * Take some time to go out and just harvest for stone/wood without getting distracted by loot crates, you're going to need a ton of the stuff. * You probably don't want to spend money unless you're a big whale. I used a dollar google play credit for the 100 coin food/water bundle, but it seems risky to spend 20 bucks on a weapons pack you could lose after one accidental death. Still, the 100 coins was nice to speed up travel time, but that's all it's good for. * Save all your empty water bottles and build at least two water traps ASAP, then split them im even piles and toss em in there. * If youre low on storage don't forget you can keep certain mats in their stations, like meat in the stove. It won't go bad. * If you have to run from a fight, zone out completely. If it was an AI Player he'll be gone when you come back in but zombies will still find you, but you can outrun Roamers and Bloaters if you need to double back to loot something. * If you're sneaking up to loot a bag/box surrounded by zombies make sure you're RIGHT next to it before you click open, otherwise your guy will take one normal speed step to it and alert everything around you. * As far as I know you can sneak up on everything except Toxic Spitters, I have yet to find one standing around, they always come charging in from off screen. Just stay crouched and out of eyeline and you're OK most of the time. You can't shake a zombie once he aggros as far as I know. * You can't join a clan or talk to others until you make a radio tower, unlocked at level 19 (29? I'll double check). * You can hold off investing in the cb radio for a while. Once built a trader will pop up on the map nearby with a single offer from time to time. So far I haven't had any of the items he wants, but I imagine he's more useful at higher levels. * If your inventory is full but there's food or water in a bin you have to leave behind just eat it there from the bin, don't waste it. * When you unlock Bravo base you are attacked by 10-20 zombies so go in prepared. Bugs and/or Quirks * If you have 14 energy and try to run to a location that costs 15 energy (as an example) it will ask if you want to use coins to recharge. When you do, you will have 85 energy left - it does not count what you had (in this case, 14 energy lost) * If your inventory is full and you cut down a tree/mine a rock/etc. you will see a message saying you're full as you harvest but you lose the mats and the node will be gone. They do not drop on the ground. Not necessarily a bug but notable. * If you want to start over, you have to make a new character on a new server. On your phone go to Settings>manage apps>clear data - you can select a new server on restart. * Sometimes if you eat your beans too fast it doesn't generate an empty can. Still not sure what cans are for. And that's all I have so far, but I'll update it as I learn more and others chip in!